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Europe Shuts Out Visitors to Slow Coronavirus Europe Barricades Borders to Slow Coronavirus
(about 7 hours later)
BRUSSELS — European leaders agreed on Tuesday to close off their territory to almost all visitors, shutting the door to most travelers for at least 30 days as they struggled to arrest the rapid spread of the coronavirus on the continent. BRUSSELS — The spiraling coronavirus epidemic tore into the fabric of Europe on Tuesday, prompting its leaders to all but wall the continent off from the rest of the world and erect barriers within it, and to throttle back or turn off the engines of ordinary life and livelihoods in hopes of slowing the deadly spread.
The leaders, meeting by teleconference, agreed to close off a region encompassing at least 26 countries and more than 400 million people — setting out on a long stretch of isolation unlike almost anything seen in modern European history. The European Union banned nonessential travel from outside the bloc into 26 nations stretching from Portugal to Finland, home to more than 400 million people, for 30 days, as Europe’s leaders grudgingly, belatedly accepted that being at the heart of a global pandemic and trying to fight it will mean severe social and economic hardship.
Exceptions will be made for European citizens and residents coming home, although some countries were asking them to self-isolate for two weeks, in some cases away from their families. Medical professionals and scientists will also be exempt. The move by Brussels was just the most dramatic on a day full of evidence that European life was abruptly becoming more atomized and constrained than anything in Europe’s modern history outside wartime.
Britain said it was not planning to participate in the measure, said the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Russia announced that it would bar most foreigners from entering starting Wednesday, and Britain and Germany urged their people not to travel abroad. Spain, hit by one of the worst outbreaks, closed its land borders to keep from exporting the virus, and several European countries barred travelers from there.
The travel limits agreed to Tuesday were the first major coordinated response to the coronavirus epidemic by the European Union, the world’s wealthiest and most integrated club of countries. Until now, governments have pursued widely differing measures to slow down the virus at home, at times blaming one another for its spread. The virus continued to chip away at the European Union’s core mission: integrating its member nations into a tightly woven whole and erasing barriers to the movement of people and goods. The number of countries re-erecting long-eliminated border checks with their neighbors rose to 12 on Tuesday, a new hitch in the flow of commerce.
The restrictions will apply to the 26 members of the bloc, and are likely to also be extended to four countries that participate in one of its proudest achievements: the Schengen Area, which allows unfettered, passport-free travel across borders. “We have a lot of traffic jams of lorries transporting goods,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the administrative branch of the bloc. “The flow of goods has to be swift. We need these goods for the functioning of the internal market.”
The decision came many European countries were already walling themselves off, re-establishing border controls that some of them took down decades ago. Spain and France joined Italy in prohibiting residents from leaving their homes except for necessities. Belgium announced that it would do so beginning on Wednesday, in addition to banning outbound flights for at least two weeks.
Special exceptions would be made for European citizens and residents coming home, although some countries were asking them to self-isolate for two weeks, in some cases away from their families. Medical professionals and scientists would also be exempt to the measures. Parisians fled for the countryside in droves on Tuesday morning ahead of the noon start of the French lockdown, and the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, warned that people would face fines of $42 to $150 for acts as simple as stopping on a sidewalk to chat with friends.
“To limit the spread of the virus globally, we agreed to reinforce our external borders by applying a coordinated temporary restriction of nonessential travel to the E.U. for a period of 30 days,” the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, said late Tuesday after the three-hour teleconference with leaders. “Staying at home today and in the coming days means saving lives,” Mr. Castaner said at a news conference. “Behind each handshake, each kiss, each group meeting, there are more victims, there are more deaths.”
Ukraine banned public gatherings, ordered businesses closed and shut down airline, train, bus and subway services. After the Orthodox Church in Greece refused to halt services voluntarily, the government — having already shut down schools, bars, restaurants and beaches — ordered it to stop. It also told most stores to stay closed starting Wednesday.
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As a practical matter, the Europe-wide lockdown will be up to each country to put in place. The European Commission does not have the ability to enforce it. Each member state would be able to tweak the restriction on whom it might allow in, and under what conditions. “The protection of public health requires clear decisions,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister.
“It’s up to them now to implement,” Ms. von der Leyen said. “They said they will immediately do that. ” Even in countries like Britain, where avoiding public gatherings remains government advice, not a dictate, there was a realization that it could cost people their jobs, their wages, their businesses, even their homes.
Among European Union countries, only Ireland would not be covered by the shutdown, because it has a passport-free travel agreement with Britain, which left the bloc in January and has never belonged to the open-border zone. “The U.K. is not planning on implementing external border restrictions,” Ms. von der Leyen said, “and of course, this then goes for Ireland too.” Laboratory-confirmed coronavirus infections in Europe, which are climbing by more than 9,000 per day, passed 70,000 on Tuesday, with more than 3,300 deaths, and experts warned that many other cases have not been detected yet.
The European move would put additional pressure on the British government which has come under some criticism for taking a more lax approach to the crisis than many of its neighbors. In Spain, the regional governments of the Balearic and Canary island chains, whose economic lifeblood is tourism, pleaded with Madrid to halt flights to them, and the leader of the Balearics, Francina Armengol, urged about 25,000 tourists there to take the first flights home.
London has been toughening its tactics. National leaders promised extraordinary interventions in economies that seemed to be careening into recession, in the harshest test of governments’ ability to keep things afloat since the 2008 financial crisis, if not much longer.
On Monday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people to keep their distance from one another and to stay away from public gathering places, though the measures are voluntary and schools remain open. And on Tuesday, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, advised British citizens against all nonessential travel worldwide for an initial period of 30 days. Bruno Le Maire, France’s economy and finance minister, said the government would not hesitate to buy big stakes in major companies, or even nationalize them, if that is needed to keep them from collapsing. He announced a financial relief package worth about $50 billion, and more than $300 million in loans for businesses.
Much of the European Union was initially resistant to travel restrictions.But formalizing continentwide restrictions became necessary, European officials said, as major countries like the United States advised their citizens to avoid Europe, and as European countries told their own citizens to avoid neighboring nations. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, whose government has already nationalized private hospitals in response to the crisis, proposed an extraordinary $220 billion rescue package for individuals and businesses. That is equivalent to about 16 percent of the country’s economy.
There was concern that the slowdown of trade and movement might begin to eat away at the carefully-knit fabric binding the 27 countries together. Twelve countries in the Schengen zone have said they are reintroducing border checks as part of their coronavirus response — a serious blow to the project of European integration. The European Union was considering ditching its notoriously stringent fiscal rules that impose hard limits on member governments’ deficits.
“A big topic today were, of course, also internal borders and consequently the blockages there,” said Ms. von der Leyen, the European Commission president. The commission is the bloc’s administrative branch. Italy, by far the hardest-hit country in Europe, reported on Tuesday that it had confirmed more than 31,500 coronavirus infections and 2,500 deaths, figures exceeded only by China. Spain topped 11,000 cases, France and Germany each rose past 7,000, and two small countries, Switzerland and Norway, reported infection rates that, relative to their populations, were even higher.
“We have a lot of traffic jams of lorries transporting goods,” Ms. von der Leyen said. “The flow of goods has to be swift. We need these goods for the functioning of the internal markets.” The death of Spain’s youngest victim, Francisco García, 21, a soccer coach from Málaga, struck a particular chord around the country. He had recently gone to a hospital with what initially seemed to be pneumonia, according to local media reports, and doctors found that he had both the coronavirus and previously undiagnosed leukemia. He died on Sunday.
Several European countries also specifically blocked travelers from Spain, which on Tuesday appeared to be fast catching up with Italy’s grim coronavirus toll, recording the second-highest death toll in Europe. At least 500 people have died in the country, and there have been 11,400 confirmed cases. Leaders of the European Union countries, after meeting by teleconference for three hours on Tuesday, agreed to the ban on most visitors from outside the region, setting out on a long stretch of isolation unlike anything in recent European history.
The youngest victim identified was Francisco García, a soccer coach from Málaga, who died Sunday. He was 21 and had recently gone to hospital with what initially seemed to be pneumonia, according to local media reports. Doctors found that he had both leukemia and coronavirus and he died soon after. Exceptions will be made for European citizens and residents coming home, although some countries were asking them to self-isolate for two weeks, in some cases away from their families. Medical professionals and scientists will also be exempt.
European leaders had hoped that Britain, which left the bloc in January, would participate in the action, but it did not. As a result, Ireland, a European Union member that has a passport-free travel agreement with Britain, was not covered by the policy.
“The U.K. is not planning on implementing external border restrictions,” Ms. von der Leyen said, “and of course, this then goes for Ireland too.”
The travel limits agreed to Tuesday were the first major coordinated response to the coronavirus epidemic by the European Union, the world’s wealthiest and most integrated club of countries. Until now, governments have pursued widely differing measures to slow down the virus at home, at times blaming one another for its spread.
The European move puts additional pressure on the British government which has come under some criticism for taking a more lax approach to the crisis than many of its neighbors.
London began toughening its tactics on Monday, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson told people to keep their distance from one another and to stay away from public gathering places — though the measures are voluntary and schools remain open. On Tuesday, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, advised British citizens against all nonessential travel worldwide for an initial period of 30 days.
Much of the European Union was initially resistant to curbing travel. But formalizing continentwide restrictions became necessary, European officials said, as major countries like the United States advised their citizens to avoid Europe, and as European countries told their own citizens to avoid neighboring nations.
“A big topic today were, of course, also internal borders and consequently the blockages there,” Ms. von der Leyen said.
The imminent suspension of travel set off a series of efforts to bring Europeans home and send tourists away.The imminent suspension of travel set off a series of efforts to bring Europeans home and send tourists away.
Germany plans to repatriate thousands of German tourists scattered around the globe, its foreign minister said on Tuesday. Germany plans to spend about $55 million repatriating thousands of German tourists scattered around the globe, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“We will do everything possible to make it possible for the thousands of Germans stranded abroad to return to Germany in the coming days,” said Heiko Maas, the foreign minister.“We will do everything possible to make it possible for the thousands of Germans stranded abroad to return to Germany in the coming days,” said Heiko Maas, the foreign minister.
Mr. Maas urged Germans already at home to stay there and put off any planned travel. “This warning against tourist travel applies worldwide,” he said. He urged Germans already at home to stay there.
Hours after Spain closed its land borders at midnight Monday, in a bid to stop infected Spaniards from taking the virus to neighboring nations, the authorities on the country’s Canary and Balearic Islands — two of Spain’s main tourism destinations — tried to limit access to their areas from mainland Spain. As a practical matter, the European Union lockdown will be up to each country to put in place; the bloc does not have the ability to enforce it. Each member state would be able to tweak the restrictions on whom it might allow in, and under what conditions.
They asked tourists to go home. “It’s up to them now to implement,” Ms. von der Leyen said. “They said they will immediately do that. ”
Reporting was contributed by Monika Pronzcuk from Brussels; Melissa Eddy from Berlin; Raphael Minder from Madrid; and Iliana Magra from London. Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Brussels, and Richard Pérez-Peña from New York. Reporting was contributed by Monika Pronzcuk from Brussels, Melissa Eddy from Berlin, Raphael Minder from Madrid, Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Iliana Magra from London, Anton Troianovski from Moscow and Joanna Berendt from Warsawk.